{"id":36580,"date":"2026-03-02T19:46:39","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T17:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/?p=36580"},"modified":"2026-03-02T19:46:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T17:46:39","slug":"conrad-embraces-favourites-tag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/2026\/03\/02\/conrad-embraces-favourites-tag\/","title":{"rendered":"Conrad embraces favourites tag"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_36581\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-36581\" style=\"width: 770px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-36581\" src=\"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-03-02-at-18.44.48-770x614.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"770\" height=\"614\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-03-02-at-18.44.48-770x614.jpeg 770w, https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-03-02-at-18.44.48-768x613.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-03-02-at-18.44.48.jpeg 1038w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 770px) 100vw, 770px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-36581\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image credit: Backpagepix<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Proteas head coach, Shukri Conrad, says the team has embraced the favourites tag as they head into Wednesday\u2019s T20 World Cup semi-final against New Zealand as the tournament\u2019s only unbeaten side.<\/p>\n<p>South Africa secured their place in the last four after beating Zimbabwe by five wickets in their last Super Eights match in New Delhi on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Their opponents New Zealand sneaked into the semi-finals with a better net run-rate than Pakistan, and will enter Wednesday\u2019s clash in Kolkata as the underdogs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There\u2019s always pressure and and it\u2019s really about embracing that pressure,&#8221; Conrad said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And we don\u2019t do things any differently, we\u2019re going to prepare exactly the same way for New Zealand whether we start as favourites probably because we\u2019re the only unbeaten side in the competition.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I always felt that as a South African team you want to be able to play as a favourite and because it\u2019s easy being an underdog you know the expectation isn\u2019t great,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>South Africa will be aiming to secure a place in the final and take a step closer to lifting their first-ever Cricket World Cup trophy.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">From Delhi to Kolkata. \u2708\ufe0f<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/TheProteas?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#TheProteas<\/a> journey south-east to the City of Joy for their Semi-Final clash on Wednesday. \ud83c\udfcf\ud83c\uddff\ud83c\udde6<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Unbreakable?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Unbreakable<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/T20WorldCup?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#T20WorldCup<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/yL4sH6rW1v\">pic.twitter.com\/yL4sH6rW1v<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Proteas Men (@ProteasMenCSA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ProteasMenCSA\/status\/2028508514600030376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 2, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Written by: Ntsako Mukhari<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Proteas head coach, Shukri Conrad, says the team has embraced the favourites tag as they head into Wednesday\u2019s T20 World Cup semi-final against New Zealand as the tournament\u2019s only unbeaten side. South Africa secured their place in the last four after beating Zimbabwe by five wickets in their last Super ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":36581,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2714,2170,2785,2350,2860,1378],"class_list":["post-36580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-icc-mens-t20-world-cup","tag-new-zealand","tag-proteas-men","tag-shukri-conrad","tag-world-cup-semi-final","tag-zimbabwe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-03-02-at-18.44.48.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36582,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36580\/revisions\/36582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}